"Pro-life" Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA-18) urged mistress to get an abortion

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

He's probably gonna get a primary challenger. But knowing the GOP primary electorate, he could easily survive.

IIRC, the Democrats actually recruited a decent wave insurance candidate here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Disgraceful. He should resign (he won't, ofc). I hope he loses.

I don't talk about abortion much, but I've stated before many times that I'm pro-life and this is unacceptable to me.

Same goes w/ DesJarlais who I have passionately opposed for years.

How can you look yourself in the mirror and say that you are pro-life and do try to pressure a woman to abort? Disgusting on so many levels.

From the other thread.

People like this a-hole and DesJarlais are why people lose faith in the system. He is an immoral fraud and needs to be primaried.

Completely agree.  But I would still rather a terrible person who will vote pro-life than someone who would have no qualms with abortion in any respect.  Hopefully a genuine conservative can primary him!!

I have a question – and please humor me for a moment – do you support charging women who get an abortion with aggravated murder and treating it as a capital crime?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Disgraceful. He should resign (he won't, ofc). I hope he loses.

I don't talk about abortion much, but I've stated before many times that I'm pro-life and this is unacceptable to me.

Same goes w/ DesJarlais who I have passionately opposed for years.

How can you look yourself in the mirror and say that you are pro-life and do try to pressure a woman to abort? Disgusting on so many levels.

From the other thread.

People like this a-hole and DesJarlais are why people lose faith in the system. He is an immoral fraud and needs to be primaried.

Completely agree.  But I would still rather a terrible person who will vote pro-life than someone who would have no qualms with abortion in any respect.  Hopefully a genuine conservative can primary him!!

I have a question – and please humor me for a moment – do you support charging women who get an abortion with aggravated murder and treating it as a capital crime?

I can't speak for ER, but I can speak for me:

No, I do not. No mainstream Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion group supports this and nor should they. The unborn are the biggest victims of abortion, but not the only ones. Women who have abortions are also victims and treating them like criminals is counterproductive and will not do anything.

Abortionists, though, I think should be convicted of a felony in a scenario where abortion is banned.

Should abortionists face the death penalty under such a scenario?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Ultimately if people hold conservative or liberal beliefs the hypocrisy or moral failings of a candidate are irrelevant, so long as the votes back up their preferences. It is not wrong for a conservative to prefer keeping Murphy vs electing a Democrat.

Well, if you don't want to factor in the idea of integrity, dignity, and so on, one could easily take this kind of hypocrisy (and what he said about his staffers writing the pro-life stuff) as a signal that he is not committed to those views, and whatever his current votes have been, he might not be dependable for anti-abortion legislation. Ditto for other stuff he says.

I think 2016 of all elections showed what happens when a politician becomes viewed as very untrustworthy. Not to say that it would play out the same for a candidate in a House race (they don't get nearly as much attention, obviously), but trust still matters.

Honestly, his quotes on the issue in the alleged texts to his mistress make this situation worse than the DesJarlais situation (you may remember that I was a huge Starrett supporter in the primary) because he pretty much said that he isn't pro-life and doesn't want his social media supporting pro-life ideas.  I absolutely want him primaried, but he would still be marginally better than a liberal, pro-abortion Democrat.

And, I vacillate a little on the issue of how to treat the women who get abortions.  In the short run, I don't think it is fair to punish them because they are victims of the lies of the abortion doctors and the abortion industry, though they should face mandatory counselling.  After a few years of it being illegal, I would support some punishment (saying that they could not, in good faith, have failed to understand their act), but still less severe than the doctors.  Right now, it would help no one to throw grieving victims of the abortion industry in jail.  Abortion doctors, on the other hand, should face life in jail without parole as a minimum sentence with the death penalty in play, just like for other murders.

See, if you really believe deep down that abortion the same as killing a baby then you'd at least have to put the death penalty on the table for mothers to be intellectually consistent.  After all, they paid the doctor to "murder" the "baby," no?  I'd argue even folks like ExtremeConservative won't make that jump because deep down they know that killing a fetus simply isn't the same as killing a baby.  You wouldn't say "let's give person A who hired a contract killer to murder Person A's kid a pass because Person A is really just a victim of the lies spread by the murder-kids-for-money industry," would you?  Of course, deep down most of us know abortion - while obviously horrible - is not the same as murdering a baby and thus are rightly horrified by the idea of executing a mother who gets an abortion.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Brandon Neuman ought to run for this if he can find a successor for his state house seat. Quite popular and usually unopposed, represents a district in PA-18 iirc.

This

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

John Fetterman is looking into running for this seat. https://mobile.twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/915944625759768577

Fetterman is my man but Braddock is in the 14th and he generally seems more interested in another Senate run in 2022.

One does not preclude the other. Fetterman would be a massive recruiting coup, and I suspect one of the few Dems who could win this seat

Brandon Neumann or even Matt Smith would be better (I definitely think Neumann could win this seat), but Fetterman would be a solid recruit.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

BREAKING: He's resigning on October 21.

That's my birthday

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The state house guy, Neuman should definitely run, then. Nothing to lose running in a special. I like Fetterman a lot, but he can't afford another loss on his record.

He lives in PA-14 (I know you only have to live in the state, not necessarily the district to run, but living outside the district can be a major liability).
https://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep?ZIP=15104&Submit=FIND+YOUR+REP+BY+ZIP

Even so, I think he could win.  Matt Smith might also be good.